What does the 21st century nurse look like?
How about Latino, male and over 35?
Nursing is currently the fastest-growing profession in the nation’s largest industry: health care. Just a generation ago new nurses entering the profession tended to be young, female and Caucasian, but that is changing in a big way.
Just as the U.S. workforce has become far more diverse over the past 20 years, so has the nursing profession. While the profession was traditionally overwhelmingly female (with many nurses spending only a few years actually working as nurses before moving on to marriage and child-rearing), changes in the nation’s health care system, economy and workforce demographics have resulted in a very different nursing workforce.
“I’ve seen a big change in the demographics of my nursing students over the past five to 10 years,” says Kathy Watson, RN, MS, CPNP, director of nursing at University of Phoenix’s Southern Arizona Campus. “Once upon a time, my students were mostly young women right out of high school who viewed nursing as more of a vocation or trade, not a profession. But now, with such a huge need for nurses in this country, the students are becoming more mature and far more serious.”
And when she says “mature,” she doesn’t just mean in terms of age. “While I’m seeing a lot of older students, I’m also seeing younger students who are a lot more serious about pursuing nursing as a long-term career and not just as a stepping-stone before getting married,” Watson says. “Today’s nursing students are expecting to spend their whole careers in nursing and also to continue pursuing more advanced education and responsibilities. And as the profession has gradually become more revered by our society, the caliber of students has gone way up.”
Not only that but Watson is seeing groups represented among her students that she didn’t see when she began teaching in nursing schools 30 years ago. “I see a full range—ethnically, in some areas, we even see more Latino nursing students than whites, which really reflects how our country is changing,” says Watson. “We also see a lot of men entering the profession, which used to be quite rare.”
One of those men is Bill West, RN, who is now pursuing both his MSN degree and FNP certification at University of Phoenix. West first entered the nursing profession nearly 15 years ago after first spending time working in health care management. “When I first went to nursing school, I was one of very few men in my class,” says West. “I already had a BA in Business Management and had been working in health care for a while. I’d just gone through a divorce and was looking for another career in health care, so I went to nursing school.”
West chuckles when he recounts some of the reactions he got from patients and colleagues when he first entered the profession. “People would ask me why I didn’t go to medical school instead,” says West. “I got that a lot. Sometimes patients would ask me odd questions, like if I was just there to take care of male patients only. Often, I’d get mistaken for being a doctor and patients would be surprised when I told them I was actually a nurse.”
West reports that some of the gender biases he faced weren't just from patients, either. “I found that many of my nursing professors had an obvious bias against male nurses. Some of them even said outright it was one of the last remaining female-dominated professions and it should stay that way.”
West started his career working in a hospital oncology department, then moved up the ranks of the profession and is now seeking to advance further in his nursing career as he pursues the MSN degree and FNP certification. In addition to pursuing his studies, West also works in a managerial role in hospice care, where he is one of three male nurses on staff at a private hospice facility (two of whom are management level, including West).
West goes on to add that while male nurses are still in the minority in the trenches, he isn’t at all surprised at the sharp increase in incoming male nursing students. “The money has finally come up to a level where a lot of men are going to think nursing is a career worth pursuing,” says West. “Plus you have a lot of men who’ve been laid off from their jobs and need new careers. I think it’ll be interesting to see how many of them actually stay in nursing, though. It’s not a career that’s well-suited to all personalities.”
Indeed, some of the gender biases West encountered early in his career led to his choice to pursue his FNP certification. “Being a male FNP has some advantages over being a new male RN on the floor,” says West. “You get a lot more autonomy as an FNP.”
The Institute of Medicine (IOM) has recognized the importance of the increasing diversity of the nurse population and has made the further development of a diverse nursing workforce over the next 10 years a priority. In the recently issued IOM report "The Future of Nursing: Leading Change," Advancing Health, the IOM argues that fostering a more diverse nursing workforce in terms of gender, race and ethnicity is essential to ensuring high-quality patient care for the diverse American population.
References
Institute of Medicine (October 2010). The Future of Nursing: Report Brief. Washington, D.C: Institute of Medicine.
U.S. Department of Health & Human Services. (1992). The Registered Nurse Population. Findings from the March 1992 National Sample Survey of Registered Nurses. Retrieved from ftp://ftp.hrsa.gov/bhpr/nursing/samplesurveys/1992sampsur.pdf
U.S. Department of Health & Human Services. (1996). The Registered Nurse Population. Findings from the March 1996 National Sample Survey of Registered Nurses. Retrieved from ftp://ftp.hrsa.gov/bhpr/nursing/samplesurveys/1996sampsur.pdf
U.S. Departmnent of Health & Human Services. (2000). The Registered Nurse Population. Findings from the March 2000 National Sample Survey of Registered Nurses. Retrieved from ftp://ftp.hrsa.gov/bhpr/rnsurvey2000/rnsurvey00.pdf
U.S. Departmnent of Health & Human Services. (2004). The Registered Nurse Population. Findings from the March 2004 National Sample Survey of Registered Nurses. Retrieved from ftp://ftp.hrsa.gov/bhpr/workforce/0306rnss.pdf
U.S. Departmnent of Health & Human Services. (2008). The Registered Nurse Population. Initial findings from the 2008 National Sample Survey of Registered Nurses. Retrieved from http://bhpr.hrsa.gov/healthworkforce/rnsurvey/initialfindings2008.pdf
